Prandelli lauds Di Natale impact

11 June 2012 04:22

Antonio Di Natale may just have played his way into Cesare Prandelli's starting line-up against Croatia after scoring the opening goal in Gdansk and almost notching another in the 1-1 draw against Spain.

"When we started this journey we tried to construct a team that could have a future," said Prandelli.

"We've always looked for top players, especially in attack and it was right to integrate Toto (Di Natale) into the squad.

"As I've always said it's easy to insert him into the team, he doesn't need a lot of games to get used to it.

He's perhaps the best in Italy at getting behind the backline. Yesterday he had a great pass from (Andrea) Pirlo but it was due to his movement that he had time to set up the goal and beat his adversary."